Monday, June 8, 2009

Rituals for Swords & Wizardy

There is one thing I really like about D&D 4th edition is the ritual system. I think it gives an excellent way of raising the magic level of a D&D campaign without ditching the vancian system. The basic innovation is that you spend gold in the form of components and you can cast a spell without memorizing it. Problem spells can be handled by require specific components that are rare and expensive.

Rituals

Any spell in the rule books can be casted as ritual. The casting time is 10 minutes. The component cost is the spell level SQUARED times ten gp. (level^2 * 10 gp). Components can be bought at most magic shops like the Sorcerer’s Supply Shop in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord. As an option the referee may wish to impose specific component requirement on certain spells particularly for those 7th level or higher.

The intent of this system is that most utility spells are cast via ritual in the Majestic Wilderlands. This changes the role of scrolls. For Magic-Users and Thothian Mages, they are mainly created to increase the number of combat spells that can be cast. They are of particular importance to Orders who do not memorize spells.

Edit

I just realized that using this house rule provides a nice explanation of the differences between Chainmail Magic and D&D Magic. In Chainmail turns are a lot longer than rounds allowing the Chainmail Wizards to cast spells via rituals. As long as the supply of components don't run out he can cast even if the battle lasts all day.

Bat in the Attic Games

How to make a Sandbox

The Old School Renaissance

To me the Old School Renaissance is not about playing a particular set of rules in a particular way, the dungeon crawl. It is about going back to the roots of our hobby and seeing what we could do differently. What avenues were not explored because of the commercial and personal interests of the game designers of the time.

What are RPGs?

A game where the players play individual characters interacting with a setting with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.

Rules are an aide to help the referee adjudicate actions and to help the players interact with the setting.

Dice are used to inject uncertainty which make a tabletop RPG campaign more interesting than "Let's Pretend".

The only thing a player needs to do to roleplay a character is to act if he or she was really there in the setting in that situation.